The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 2, 1972 Page: 1 of 6
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Famed French mimist Jacques Lecog quietly visits Rice
by H. DAVID DANGLO
Jacques Lecoq, French mimist
and director of Eeole Jacques
Lecoq, delivered a lecture-per-
formance to a full house in
Haraman Hall last Monday
night.
This lecture performance was
one of a series of experiments
in audience education for the
Rice and Houston communities
under the general sponsorship
of The Rice Alumni subcom-
mittee on the arts, Barry Moore,
chairman. There will be a sec-
ond lecture performance for the
Rice community only on Friday,
March 3 at 8:30 pm in Ham-
man Hlall, and according to
Donald Bayne, Rice player,
"The whole campus should make
this one. Athletes might be es-
pecially interested since Lecoq
is expected to stress athletic
movements."
The lecture performances are
co-sponsored by the Rice Pro-
gram Council, the Houston
Alliance Francaise, the U. of
St. Thomas Drama Department,
the Texas Council of Teachers
of English, the Society for the
Performing Arts and the Edu-
cation and Athletic Committees
of the Association of Rice Alum-
ni. Others involved in enabling
Lecoq's work to be more widely
experienced in Houston are the
Drama Depts. of U. of H.,
Houston Baptist, South Texas,
Lamar and SMU, the High
School for the Performing Arts,
Burr us becomes
Lovett master
Rice University News
Dr. Charles Sidney Burrus,
associate professor of electrical
engineering, becomes master of
Edgar Odell Lovett College,
succeeding Dr. Robert F. Curl,
Jr., effective July 1, 1972.
"I was given the opportunity,
and I said yes," says Burrus
about his new assignment. "I
feel Lovett will be a very in-
teresting college to work with."
a**"
Burrus joined the Rice fac-
ulty in 1965 as an assistant pro-
fessor and became associate pro-
fessor in 1970. He holds bache-
lor's and master's degrees from
Rice University and a doctor-
ate degree from Stanford Uni-
versity.
While on the Rice campus,
Burrus has received several
awards. Among them are
the Teaching Award from the
Texas Society of Professional
Engineers (1968), the George
R. Brown Award for Superior
Teaching (1969), the J. S. Ful-
ton Service Aw;ard from Will
Rice College (1971) andc several
research and travel grants from
the National Science Founda-
tion for his work in systems
theory.
Burrus is the author of nu-
merous articles dealing With his
ispecial fields of interest, sys-
tems theory, digital filtering,
circuit theory and biomedical
applications.
He serves on the Undergrad-
uate Teaching Committee, the
Brown Development Committee
for undergraduate engineering,
the University Welfare Commit-
tee, the Rice Alumni Executive
Board, the Engineering Alumni
Board, the Faculty Council and
as an associate of Will Rice
College.
Burrus and his wife Mary Lee
will move into the master's
quarters with their two chil-
dren, Virginia, 12, and Charles,
10.
the Consulat General de
France, Dr. and Mrs. Norman
Hackerman, Baker Master
and Mrs. CJiarles W. Philpott
and Jones Master and Mrs. Neil
Havens, also director of the-' pantomime. His entire lecture
Players. was in French, and his wife
In his first demonstration translated for the audience.
Monday, Lecoq explained the "Mime," he explained, "travels
difference between mime and without words, before or after
♦^3
&
£
4^
v
Giles says Rice jocks fairly smart
the past, he was 'not. aware' some courses are less difficult
by BRIAN BUCHANAN
Rice University has in re-
cent years been involved in con-
siderable controversy regarding
the value of the athletic pro-
gram as it is now constituted.
Much of this controversy cen-
ters around scholarship ath-
letes. In an effort to supply
the University community with
some facts about this issue, the
Thresher talked last week with
James Bernard Giles, Director
of Admissions.
Rice University grants 70
full athletic scholarships an-
nually, to be proportioned
among the various sports by
the coaching staff. This means
that just over 10% of an en-
tering class is composed of
scholarship athletes.
Athletes are selected by the
coaching staff initially, and
then considered by the Admis-
sions office.
Giles stated that while jocks
were found throughout the
scholastic spectrum, there hgd
been four or five 'unfortunate
choices' last year. He stressed
however, that scholarship ath-
letes were not predominately
good or bad students. In a sur-
vey conducted 'three or four
years ago', it was discovered
that the average College Board
scores of Rice athletes was
higher than the average College
Board scores of the entire stu-
dent body of any other SWC
school. •
Concerning the existance of
'jock courses' at Rice, Giles said
that while there had been some
that there had been any in the
last six years. Many students
seem to disagree with this view,
but it must be admitted that
1han others, and the, possibility
exists of consciously maximiz-
ing the number of less difficult
courses.
Topazio promoted
Rice University News
Dr. Virgil W. Topazio, dean
of humanities and social sci-
eences since 1967, has been
named Favrot Professor of
French at Rice University, ef-
fective September 1.
The Favrot chair was estab-
lished in September 1968 in
honor of the late Laurence H.
Favrot, member of the Rice
Board of Governors at the time
of his death in 1964. Topazio
succeeds the first recipient of
the chair, Dr. Andre M. G.
Bourgeois who retires Aug. 31
after 44 years at Rice.
Topazio is a specialist in 18th
Century French literature, an
area in whidh he has lectured
and published widely. For his
contributions to French culture
Topazio was presented the
Palmes Aciademiques award by
the French government in 1968.
His most recent lecture en-
gagement was last summer at
the Third Congress on the En-
lightenment a/t the University
of Nancy, France. There he de-
livered a major address analyz-
ing the moral code of the Baron
DHolbach (a topic on which he
has authored a book and is one
of the world's few experts) and
he presided over a discussion
section.
The author of Voltaire, A
Critical Study of His Major
Works (Random House, 1967),
Topazio is currently working
with a group of international
editors on a forthcoming edition
of the complete works of Vol-
taire.
Topazio is an associate of
Will Rice College, a member of
the University Council and an
ex officio member of the Educa-
tion Council and the Humanities
and Social Science Research
Council at Rice. He joined Rice
in 1965 f." '"professor of French
and chaL-i of the depart-
ment aftfci* Usetching at the Uni-
versity of Rochester, Rochester,
N. Y. (1948-1965) and lecturing
at Columbia University. He was
a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer
at the University of Rennes in
France for the academic year
1964-65.
Topazio holds a bachelor's
degree from Wesleyan Univer-
sity and master's and doctor-
ate degrees from Columbia.
He is a member of the Mod-
ern Language Association, the
(Continued on Page 3)
the word. Pantomime is linked
with words, gesture replaces
the word." It is generally known
that these theatrical forms were
most prominent in decadent
parts of history, either at the
end of one or the beginning of
the other. "In troubled mo-
ments," Lecoq remarked, "the
body becomes important be-
cause of vital movements and
elementary thoughts that are
the basis of human communi-
cation."
Lecoq depicted several ways
of walking after demonstrating
the basic movements of undula-
tion.
"No one, walks alike," he ex-
plained. "Each person has a
special gait that makes up his
own personality."
Other topics in this part of
the presentation included the
solar plexus as "the zone of
sensitivity — the sensitive pas-
sions go out of it" and a man-
nikin's job ("a mannikin must
show her dress and not present
herself in the dress . . . she
must transport an attitude").
Lecoq then went on to de-
scribe and perform typical ges-
tures of various countries. In
America, for example, he noted
that most gestures are thrown
out, without the elegance or
the tightness or rapidity of
Italian gestures. Ho also be-
came a tree, fire and a flying
animal before lie went on to
the demonstration of general
masks and countermasks (the
action required convey ade-
quately a masks' expression and
the actions' opposite, respec-
tively). The masks including
very large samples used in
Switzerland at the carnival of
Balle, with which he was able
to show aggression and dimb-
ness with the same mask. He
concluded by stating that, there
were gestures beneath gestures,
and presentation of the smal-
lest mask in the world — a
clown's red nose.
Lecoq, who began his teach-
ing career as a physical educa-
tion instructor, is a professor
at the Ecole Nationale Super-
ieure des Beaux Arts in Paris,
specializing in the study of
movement and space in drama,
In addition, he is director of
the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, school
of mime and theatre movement,
in Paris which he founded in
1956. In his work there, Lecoq
has developed mime beyond its
traditional limits and has made
it the foundation of a dramatic
form based on gestures, atti-
tudes, and movements of the
human body. His school has
influenced mimes, comedians*
directors, actors and teachers.
Lecoq has created a number
of original works of mime and
helped start FEcole de Piccolo.
He has directed and choreo-
graphed various productions for
theatres, international festivals,
film and television in France,
Italy, Germany, England and
Greece. Currently Lecoq is
choregraphing Stravinsky's "Le
Renard" for an April 1 pre-
miere in Monte Carlo. >
m
This is Lecoq's second visit
to the U. S., his first to Texas.
His first visit to this country
was in the spring of 1970 when
he conducted a similar program
at Harvard. He has also 'con-
ducted study courses in his
methods in Denmark, Finland,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,
Canada and Japan.
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Freed, DeBow. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 59, No. 20, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 2, 1972, newspaper, March 2, 1972; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245127/m1/1/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.